Allan Ashinoff - The Vostok Revelation

Elena had shrewdly designed her drone to avoid the failures of its predecessors, equipping it with excessive L.E.D lighting, six independently controllable, multi-spectral cameras, a four-foot clawed retractable arm, and a casing made of a custom epoxy specifically engineered to shield the drone’s instrumentation from electronic, magnetic, and radio interference. After twenty-two years, the Russian Academy of Science would have Elena Babanin to thank for unlocking the secrets Lake Vostok.

Elena frowned as she waited for Anton and Losif to inform her that their tasks had been completed. Elena had designed her drone with hard-line power and communication capability specifically to avoid sitting through a winter at the bottom of the world. Once deployed, managing her drone’s movements, conducting its many experiments, and harvesting its data for analysis could be done from anywhere on Earth. There was absolutely no reason to be in this forsaken wasteland more than the twenty-four hours she requested.

Forty-five minutes? Where the hell are they?

“Elena,” Losif called out just as she was considering using the station’s intercom to find them. He, Anton, and another heavily bearded man were slowly navigating the cluttered passageway toward her. “The power and communication up-link is ready.” Losif turned sideways to face the man behind Anton, “This is Stepan Voloshin, the stations mining engineer. He will be lowering the drone for us. Commander Lebedev will be along shortly.”

Stepan nodded to Elena as he stepped past her and approached the done resting on the workbench. Immediately, he reached above his head, seized a dangling power cable and pulled down several feet of slack. Grabbing a screwdriver, he flipped open the drone’s rear access panel and began attaching the power wires. Moments later he flipped closed the access panel, tightened it down with screws, and toggled a power switch on the panel above the workbench. Instantly, dozens of pinpoint L.E.D.’s embedded into the housing of the drone began to flicker. Several seconds passed before all of the flickering lights began to solidify and then slowly fade to black.

“Are there diagnostics you need to run before I seal this shut and place it on the track?”

“No, the onboard L.E.D.’s would have indicated if anything preventing deployment,” Elena said smugly. “You may lower it immediately.”

Stepan shrugged his shoulders and then hefted the drone. Cradling it in his arms he rotated 180 degrees and carefully placed the drone into an open fifteen-foot cylindrical container on the bench behind him. After ensuring that the power cable was properly resting in the channel leading out of the container’s top end, he closed the sheath and attached a slender hose from the bench to a fitting on its side. Stepan flipped a switch and a vacuum compressor roared to life. A few noisy seconds later the rubber seal of the payload chamber door was pulled firmly against the knife-edge of the sheaths base. Content with the seal, he switched off the motor, detached the hose, and began wrapping the sheath in a weighted metal harness. Lifting the sheath, he took several careful steps and placed it onto horizontal segment of guide track hinged to its vertical sister.

Stepan turned to look at Elena, “You are certain that everything is ready for insertion?”

“Yes.” Elena responded impatiently.

“Very well.” He raised the segment of track containing the sheath until it clicked into its vertical position. Stepan reached up with both hands, found the two buttons he was blindly searching for, and then pressed and held them to begin the drone’s 2.2 mile descent to Lake Vostok.

Elena Babanin watched as more than a year of her life slipped into the soupy black mixture of chemicals that kept the two-mile deep bore hole from refreezing. “How long before it penetrates the lake?”

“Three hours,” Stepan’s eyes never left the cable feeding into the hole. “It will take two hours to descend the shaft and about an hour for the harness to melt its way through the final twenty or so feet of ice.”

“The anti-freeze will not contaminate the lake?” Elena asked, already knowing the answer but feeling the need for verbal assurance.

“Quite certain.”

“Artur!” Stepan called out as he suddenly turned away from the track, “You still have the vodka, yes?”

“Of course,” Artur replied. “We just need glasses.”

“To the cafeteria!” Stepan called back.

Hastily the Vostok Station crew members departed for the cafeteria leaving Elana and her people behind. They would spend the three hours smoking tobacco, drinking vodka, playing cards, and arguing, as had been their regular routine for the last five months.

It took slightly more than two hours for the drone, weighted in its sheath, to come to rest on the ice blocking the final twenty-five feet of the bore hole. Within seconds, thanks to the warming of the mesh harness, the sheath gradually began sinking into the fresh water puddle it had created.

As if on cue, the men of the Vostok crew returned to their station accompanied by a gaunt looking man with an enormous burly black beard. Stepan returned to his computer console to monitor the drone’s descent.

“Babanin,” the bearded man began before he could be introduced. “I am Commander Lebedev. I do hope this deployment goes well. My crew has not seen their families in months. Considering the tight quarters and the limited provisions, it would not go well for all of us to be stuck at this station for the winter.”

“The Academy has given us up to 72 hours, Commander.”

“Yes, I understand. But the Continent, she doesn’t care about what the Academy thinks, says or assigns,” Lebedev said, his blue eyes firm below his bushy, unkempt eyebrows, “There is no game to play here; no political will forcing things to start and stop as planned, only nature. We are on the edge of the winter season in Antarctica. Should a storm develop before your 72 hours has expired, I will not hesitate to order the evacuation.”

“I understand, Commander Lebedev. The window given by the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow is more than triple what I requested.” Elena placed her laptop on the workbench next to the monitoring console. “If everything is in order and all goes well with the descent,” she continued as she powered on her laptop and attached a data cable between her system and the device monitoring her drone, “we should be able to depart in approximately twelve hours.”

“By morning?” A liquored-up Vostok crew said in surprise. The rumble of the news spread quickly throughout the compact compartment.

“The sheath has penetrated the ice.” Stepan said barely loud enough to be heard over the revelry. The chamber instantly became silent. Stepan looked intently at the readings on his screen. He pecked at several keys, gave a slight approving grunt, “Releasing the drone.”

Everyone in the room stared at string of yellow flashing circles that extended from the top left corner of the monitor. After several flashes the first circle solidified to green to indicate that the drone was clear of its sheath. The second light flashed several more times before it too turned green. In the center of the second circle a number appeared that steadily began to grow. The drone was descending quickly.

A cheer erupted from the Vostok crew. Stepan, his part in the deployment completed, smiled slightly as he stepped back from his workbench. Elena, with a series of deft keystrokes on her keyboard, began turning the remainder of the yellow circles green.

“Initiating final onboard diagnostics,” Elena said quietly to herself. Without expression she watched the monitor looking for any indication that a problem existed. A minute passed before a tight-lipped smile spread across her face.